Deciding what to bundle ecommerce stores often guess at, but a small framework removes the guesswork. Look at what shoppers already pair, find the natural complements, and check that the saving still keeps a healthy margin.
A bundle only works if the products inside it belong together. Throw random items into a set and shoppers ignore it. The good news is that deciding what to bundle is not guesswork. A few simple questions will point you straight at the combinations worth offering.
In this guide to what to bundle ecommerce:
- Ask what already sells together
- Look for natural complements
- Run it through a quick checklist
- When to use mix and match instead
- Frequently asked questions
Ask what already sells together
Your order history is the best place to start. If customers regularly buy two products in the same order, that is a bundle waiting to happen. You are not creating demand, you are making something easier that people already do.
Look for natural complements
Some products complete each other. A cleanser and a moisturiser. Coffee and a filter. A main item and the accessory it needs. When one product makes the other more useful, the bundle feels obvious to the shopper, and obvious bundles convert.
Run it through a quick checklist
- Do these products share a use, a theme, or a customer?
- Does the bundle make the shopper’s life easier, not just cheaper?
- Can you discount it and still keep a healthy margin?
- Would you be happy to buy this set yourself?
When to use mix-and-match instead
If there is no single obvious pairing because customers all want something slightly different, do not force a fixed set. Offer a mix-and-match bundle and let shoppers choose. The framework still applies, you are just letting the customer answer the question of what goes together.
Bundle what shoppers already pair, what genuinely complements, and what still earns you a margin. Get those three right and your bundles will lift revenue instead of cluttering your store.
A practical decision tree for what to bundle ecommerce stores can apply today
Deciding what to bundle ecommerce stores often agonise over does not need a workshop. A short decision tree gets you to a reasonable first bundle in about thirty minutes. Start with your order history, look for two products that show up in the same basket more often than chance would predict, and check that bundling them at a small discount still leaves a healthy margin.
If your order history is too small to find a pattern, look at category instead. Pair the product that customers research most before buying with the product they need to make the first one useful. That second product is the cross-sell that wants to become a bundle.
- Step one: pull the last quarter of orders and look for repeat pairings
- Step two: pair products that complete each other rather than duplicate
- Step three: check margin after the planned discount before launching
- Step four: launch one bundle, measure for two weeks, then decide on the next
For the data-driven side, Shopify’s customer segmentation guide shows how to pull the order history slices that feed the decision tree above.
Using order data to decide what to bundle ecommerce stores already have
The fastest way to figure out what to bundle ecommerce data is sitting right inside your Shopify orders. Pull the last quarter of completed orders, group them by basket composition, and look for pairs of products that appear together more often than chance would predict. That co-purchase pattern is the data version of the question all bundling guides try to answer, and it tells you what your specific customers want grouped before you guess.
The method is closely related to the market basket analysis that supermarkets pioneered in the 1990s. The same techniques that produced the famous beer-and-diapers retail story are what you can run informally on your own orders to find your store’s equivalent pairings.
Even a simple version of this analysis usually produces three or four bundle ideas that are stronger than anything you would have invented from a brainstorm.
For the data-science background, the Wikipedia entry on association rule learning covers the technique behind formal market basket analysis.
Frequently asked questions
Where do I find good bundle ideas?
Your order history. If shoppers already buy two products together, you are making something easier that customers already do.
What if there is no obvious pairing?
Use a mix-and-match bundle. Let the shopper decide what goes together and reward them with a tiered discount.
What is the quickest sanity check?
Ask whether you would happily buy the set yourself. If the bundle does not feel obvious to you, it will not feel obvious to a shopper.
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